Revolutionary Iliya Lukanov

Iliya Lukanov Lilov was a Bulgarian national revolutionary and politician, born in Lovech in 1853. He was the third son of Father Lukan Lilov and the brother of Marin Poplukanov, Hristo Lukanov and Velichka Hashnova. He studied in Lovech and Tarnovo, where he learned the tailoring trade.

In 1870 he travelled with Nikola Chernokozhev to Odesa, Russia, where he received a scholarship and studied at the Odesa Seminary. He corresponded with leading figures in the Bulgarian national revolutionary struggle, such as Vasil Levski and Vasil Radoslavov. In Odesa he was a close friend of Stefan Stambolov and translated works on fortification.

After completing his education, he returned to Lovech, where he taught until 1877. During this period he participated in the national revolutionary struggle, re-establishing the second Lovech Local Revolutionary Committee. He worked with the Giurgiu Committee led by Stefan Stambolov and Panayot Volov, but the actions of the Turkish authorities prevented him from staging an uprising in 1876.

During the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878), Lukanov was an assistant to the Russian military commandant of Lovech, Lieutenant Colonel Yevgeny Spokoysky-Frantsevich.

Iliya Lukanov entered politics and was elected a member of parliament for the town of Tran on the Liberal Party ticket in the first National Assembly elections in 1879. Despite his election, he resigned because he did not wish to violate the Tarnovo Constitution. Service in various towns followed, as did membership of the Fourth Ordinary National Assembly (1884 – 1886), where he chaired a parliamentary committee.

After the split in the Liberal Party in 1886, Lukanov became an activist in the People's Liberal Party, the Stambolovists. He took an active part in political struggles and held various state posts, including chief secretary of the Ministry of the Interior (1887 – 1891) and city governor of Sofia (1892 – 1894), during Stefan Stambolov's governments.

In 1895, after the attack on Stambolov, Iliya Lukanov warned the leader about the planned attack; following Stambolov's murder, he withdrew from political life. Lukanov led a modest and unobtrusive existence until his death in Sofia in 1923.